Lottery Gambling Enters Comp. Lit. 11 as Students Bet on Number of Authors Mentioned--High Mark so Far is 73

Harvard men have invented a new gambling game akin to stock market lotteries, baseball pools and clearance house totals, a CRIMSON reporter has discovered. Not only that but they have succeeded in combining business with pleasure, and pursue the Goddess of Chance in the classroom.

Persistent rumors that students enrolled in Comparative Literature 11, the course of Professor Irving Babbitt, exponent of the New Humanism, have formed a lottery based on the number of writers which he mentions in one lecture, were finally granted credence. Some enterprising undergraduate, whose name remains a secret, has formed the pool with tickets numbered from 1 to 100, at ten cents a ticket. There are three official tally-keepers who count every writer mentioned: the man holding the ticket corresponding, to the total number of writers wins the lottery, less a ten per cent commission. Naturally, many ramifications have forced their way into the sport and have changed its amateur beginnings into true professionalism. Touts and dopesters keep day-by-day figures and therefore have a good idea of the best numbers. The average total is around 47, it was learned.

Saturday proved to be a Waterloo for the sure-thing gamblers, however, when Professor Babbitt quoted 73 writers in his lecture. This new high has set a dangerous precedent, the proprietors of the pool fear, for many of the students have turned bulls with a vengeance. A bearish drop in any one lecture would ruin the business, but the owners are unable to stabilize it in any manner. Its increasing popularity is attributed to the fact that there can be no pre-lecture fixing.

The name of the authors run a large gamut, one near to the game declared. In one lecture Byron, Wordsworth. Wackenroder, Hazlitt, Novalis, Chateaubriand, Herder, Rousseau, Goe-the and Voltaire clashed with St. Augustine, Confucius, Aristotle, St. Paul, Socrates, Dante, Plato and Marcus Aurelius, Sandwiched in between were Walter Lippman, Barry Elmer Barnes, John Dewey, H. L. Mencken, Picasso and John Livingston Lowes.